A man who kept fifty dogs and who refused human company was found dead recently at his home near Ironton, Ohio. "He just wanted to be by himself all the time, just be with his dogs," said a neighbor. [Pet Pardons] Also: Will eating chocolate really kill your dog? [io9]

  • B Timothy Creel

    My sister worked for emergency services at one time and they had learned a bit about pets eating their owners. Dogs would starve for 7-10 days usually. Cats would wait for maybe three.

    • http://twitter.com/rvitelli Romeo Vitelli

      At least the cats wait until the owner stops moving…

    • Snig

       And cats have the usually well deserved reputation for being the finicky types.

    • Simon Bradshaw

      Although I did read a paper by some German forensic techs summarising a couple of instances where there was evidence that dogs had started eating their late owners within hours of death. The authors noted that hunger could not have caused this and speculated that perhaps dogs might react to the body of their owner as being in some way a wrong-smelling ‘imposter’ that was somehow seen as a threat.

  • Robert

    “He just wanted to be by himself all the time, just be with his dogs.” A part of him will live forever in each dog.
    …

    What?

  • Mr. Son

    I think this must be the underlying point of domestication — giving them the manners to wait until AFTER you die to start chewing.

    • CognitiveDissident

      You put the words Domestication and Chewing too close together, my brain read: Domastication (“I” am not making that up, even though “my brain” did.)
      Yikes.

      • Mr. Son

        Do ‘mastication’, the hot new trend among today’s youths!

  • Robert Cruickshank

    “Hey guys- look at this! All this time he was full of bones! Why didn’t he tell us? Nom nom nom. ”

  • awjt

    I am continually amazed by animals.  Their sense of smell is thousands of times better than human.  Yet, they will eat the most putrefied horrible stenchiferous substances available, and roll in it like perfume.  If I were locked in a house, I would ram myself into a window until I could get out, rather than consume something as horrid as my (former dearly departed) owner.

    • http://www.lightning-rose.com/ LightningRose

       Canines instinctively roll in stinky stuff to cover their own scent while hunting.

      Carnivores have a much tougher digestive system than omnivores like us, so they can tolerate rancid meat better than we can.

      • awjt

         Well, that makes it all sound 1000x better. Phew.

  • urbanspaceman
    • haineux

      Came here to say this. Rocking out satisfied.

    • bibulb

      THANK YOU. I was going to feel very disappointed if nobody mentioned Mr. Lowe.

  • Rob Gehrke

    I have a feeling this is not what they mean by “Hill’s Science Diet — Mature Adult”…

    Beyond the humor, though, this is just horrible. Being mentally instable, depressed, dysfunctional does NOT make me feel sympathy for the owner here, just look at the results (“Most of the animals were emaciated and many had to be put down.”) …

    More proof that no one person should be hoarding this many animals, not matter what his/her feelings are about his/her capacity for actually taking care of them. It’s just cruel, stupid and selfish. Things like this honestly make me wish the animals had finished the job…

    Also, what is it with Ohio people and animals? I’m reminded of this story, another fool who was entrusted with too much responsibility, resulting in tragedy :
    http://news.yahoo.com/lions-tigers-shot-ohio-owner-freed-them-212126865.html

    • bcsizemo

      So we can’t feed Soylet Green to animals?

      • Guest

        In my opinion, no, but it varies from person to person.

    • surreality

       It is horrible, but sometimes when people are that mentally unstable, they won’t realize that they’re doing more harm than good by taking these animals in. It’s not entirely an excuse, of course, and they probably still deserve some of the blame. I just wish that perhaps the neighbors had been more attentive, or maybe called an animal shelter, or that animal shelters had more funding and capabilities to do things such as check in on places where they know large amounts of animals are living. I guess we need those animal cop shows where they investigate animal hoarders to become more widespread or something.

  • Ipo

    The Lawrence County Dog Shelter is going to have a “Adopt a Man-Eater Program”. 
    That’s a cooler story to tell about your dog than: “Fluffy won the best of breed hairstyling award at the county fair.”

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1354416085 John Durham

    Witnessed this first hand in the early ’90s working as an EMT in RVA. 
    Old man Jones hadn’t been seen for awhile, mail piling up on the porch, etc. So the neighbors called EMS to check on him. 
    After knocking on all the doors, and when PoPo had arrived we pried the plywood nailed over the rear door’s window (kind of a sh***y ‘hood) and saw an elderly black male lying face down in the kitchen with blood pooled around his head. 
    Thinking originally it was a homicide situation it became apparent pretty quickly that he succumbed to natural causes; be it stroke, heart attack or whatever I never found out. 
    But the gentleman’s tiny little toy poodle, all white except for the dried blood surrounding it’s adorable (shudder) mouth gave us a quick explanation for the missing eyes, throat, tongue, and other soft fleshy bits. 
    Serious creepshow.  
    Dogs are carnivores. They will eat you. 

  • oldtaku

    I don’t really see anything wrong with having my pets eat me if I die and am somehow not found for a week (which is unlikely at this point, but…)  I’d rather have them fed, it’s not like I’ll care, and it’s certainly the fanciest of all feasts.

  • MarnieMacLean

    Starved carnivores eats available meat from dead carcass, non-news at 11.